text:
Denise Curcio
Sales Vice PresidentText Agent203.556.2722Denise.Curcio@raveis.com
Bethany, CT —
A Retreat Away from the Noise of the City
http://raveisescapes.com/a-retreat-away-from-the-noise-of-the-city/?
By Denise Curcio
Dreaming about a retreat away from the noise of the city? Consider secluded, affordable, wooded Bethany--Connecticut's best-kept secret. A sleepy, slow-moving place, surrounded by a rich cultural oasis, Bethany had been named by Connecticut Magazine as among the best small towns in Connecticut. Your neighbor might be a nurse, a professor, a business mogul, a carpenter, but all of them fiercely defend its 58% of undeveloped land and its sustainable agriculture. After all, the town motto is "Rural is Beautiful." With a population of only 5,500, it was jokingly described as having as many horses as people and there is a Horse Commissioner, who manages the many events available for horse lovers. All this, only 80 miles from New York City and 45 miles from Stamford by car or train.
Relax on your deck overlooking the woods and watch the wild turkeys, woodpeckers, red cardinals, yellow finches, and butterflies. Take a leisurely stroll or quick drive to buy sustainably grown seasonal fruits and vegetables at Clover Nook farm, one of the oldest continuously operating family-owned and run farms in the state. Locals especially love their tasty heirloom tomatoes and sweet corn, freshly picked every day. The farm also raises its own lamb, pork and beef--all without hormones. Have a big breakfast at the family-friendly Country Corner Diner and then head to the small local flea market, open every Saturday from May to the end of October, where folks sell just about anything. Not far away is Intellectual treasures at Whitlock's Book Barn, an antiquarian bookseller housed in two old barns set in a pasture. Selling rare old books, old maps and other ephemera Whitlock's also has used books for under $5! The October Annual Harvest Festival is a fun family affair, with entertainment and great food. Meet neighbors by joining the Historical Society, Lion's Club, Garden Club and the Democratic or Republican Town Committees, which host annual dinners, breakfasts, bake sales and blacksmith demos open to all.
"buy sustainably grown seasonal fruits and vegetables at Clover Nook farm, one of the oldest continuously operating family-owned and run farms in the state. "
For those who want a more active lifestyle, have a round of golf at the highly rated family-run 9-hole Woodhaven Country Club, where golf fees are reasonable and greens are "challenging but fair." Hike the Naugatuck Forest Trail and then enjoy a swim in Veteran's Memorial Park Lake during the summer. Hike nearby Sleeping Giant State Park and fish for trout in its streams. The trail up the mountain ends at a stone observation tower with a magnificent view all the way to Long Island Sound. You also can walk, skate, ski or bike portions of the 50-mile paved Farmington Canal Heritage Trail. Then head to family-run Drazen Orchards in nearby Cheshire, where the owners greet you with a smile and a hello, and you can pick 14 varieties of apples, as well as peaches, plums, pears and quince. (They also have great pies!).
Bethany may be a throwback to lazier by-gone days, but residents have world-class culture and food right nearby. New Haven, only 10 miles away, has some of the best theater on the East coast. See it first at The Long Wharf Theater, an internationally recognized leader in regional theater, which has launched 30 Broadway and Off-Broadway plays. The Schubert Theater has an illustrious history, premiering A Streetcar Named Desire with Marlon Brando, Teahouse of the August Moon with John Forsyth, My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, and many more. The Schubert Theater offers performances of dance, cabaret, popular music and family entertainment.
"You also can walk, skate, ski or bike portions of the 50-mile paved Farmington Canal Heritage Trail. "
Also close by are Yale University's world-class museums and art galleries—all open to the public and mostly free, great for a rainy day. The Yale Center for British Art has the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom See the Gutenberg Bible at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript library. The Yale University Art Gallery has an "encyclopedic" collection of art, including works by Degas, van Gogh, Picasso, as well as early Italian paintings, vessels from Tang-dynasty China, masks from West Africa and much more. People of all ages can participate in classes with artists and curators throughout the year. The young and the young-at-heart will enjoy the Peabody Museum of Natural History, which boasts renowned collections that include fossils of our earliest dinosaurs.
After a busy day, head back to Bethany and relax.


text:
Pelizeaus Merzbacher Disease
PMD Information
T4T Fund
Charity Merchandise
What is Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease?
Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) is a rare genetic condition affecting the central nervous system. It is estimated that PMD affects approximately 1 in 500,000 people internationally.
It is one of a group of gene-linked disorders known as the leukodystrophies, which are all characterised by abnormalities in the myelin sheath (the fatty tissue which surrounds the brain and nerves). These abnormalities are caused by a mutation in the Proteolipid Protein1 (PLP1) gene that controls the production of the myelin protein.
The exact type of PLP1 mutation dictates the onset and severity of PMD.
There are four levels of severity described which, in order of decreasing severity are:
Connatal PMD - the most severe type: involves delayed mental and physical development and severe neurological symptoms.
Classic PMD - the early symptoms include muscle weakness, involuntary movements of the eyes (nystagmus) and delays in motor development within the first year of life.
Complicated SPG2 - features motor development problems and brain involvement.
Pure SPG2 - includes cases of PMD that do not have neurological complications.
Generally, the clinical picture is one of:
Nystagmus (uncontrolled movement/wobbly eyes)
Spastic quadriplegia (stiffness of limbs)
Ataxia (involuntary movements)
Parents have also highlighted the following symptoms:
Poor sleeping habits
Failure to Thrive (poor weight gain)
Eating difficulties (issues with chewing/swallowing and aspiration)
Typically, the disease begins in the first two months of life, but milder variations may not present until childhood.
Connatal PMD - usually there is nystagmus from birth, they often have stridor, respiratory difficulties and hypotonia(decreased muscle tone). Boys with connatal PMD can also suffer from seizures, have limited language, inability to walk and develop severe spasticity (stiffness) with little voluntary movement. It is believed that most boys with this variation of PMD die during infancy or early childhood.
Classical PMD - boys usually present within the first 2 months of life. Again the first sign tends to be nystagmus, followed by development of ataxia, cognitive delay and spasticity. Nodding or a tremor of the head is often noted, and those who learn to walk, will often do so in a staggering fashion. Those that do walk tend to be milder cases but it is noted that they tend to lose the ability when the reach adolescence. Most cases achieve some language skills but fluency is slow and may suggest a more severe degree of learning difficulty than is present. These patients may survive to the sixth decade of life or longer.
SPG2-like disease - there is spastic paraplegia from childhood, mild cognitive impairment, ataxia and athetosis (continual slow movements, especially of the extremities). They usually live to the sixth decade or beyond. Neurological signs progress gradually with periods of relative stability. If they learn to walk they tend to lose it during adolescence (occasionally adulthood).
Other general observations may be made:
Developmental milestones are either markedly delayed or sometimes never achieved.
Many individuals are small for their age.
Over 95% have nystagmus but the age of onset does not predict clinical severity. The nystagmus is usually pendular (wave pattern) but can have horizontal or rotor components.
As the child grows and spasticity replaces hypotonia, head control remains poor.
In more severe cases there may be convulsions.
Milder cases may be able to walk but this is lost in adolescence, as the spasticity tends to be worse in the legs.
In severe cases, the child is unable to sit unsupported and is certainly unable to walk.
Ataxia is evident once voluntary movements are acquired and affects virtually all patients.
In milder cases, the ataxia affects their speech. Therefore, although there is cognitive delay, this may seem more severe than it is because of severe limitation of speech. Comprehension may be rather better than phonation.
Voluntary movements are almost invariably complicated by ataxia.
We believe that PMDs rarity is partly down to misdiagnosis over the years. It is now better understood and therefore more correct diagnoses are being made.
PMD has features similar to many conditions, including:
Spinal muscular atrophy.
Autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia .
Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL).
Severe cerebral palsy.
Multiple sclerosis.
MRI scan is a very useful investigation as it shows poor myelination, although this may not be apparently abnormal until about 1 year of age. It may also show reduced brain volume in those with the connatal form.
Nerve conduction studies show normal conduction in peripheral nerves whereas other leukodystrophies show a slowing of peripheral nerve conduction. Genetic diagnostic testing is the definite test, and will be used to confirm PMD once an MRI scan shows myelination issues. Genetic testing will also show whether there is a point mutation or a duplication of the PLP1 gene.
There is currently no cure for the disease and, currently, there are no treatment.
Managing the symptoms is therefore the only way to 'treat' the patient.
Management options include:
Genetic counselling and telling the parents the prognosis.
Occupational therapy - providing equipment
Surgery (often on bones, joints and tendons. Operations for severe stridor is also possible)
Severely affected individuals may also require airway protection (tracheostomy), management of gastro-oesophageal reflux, and anticonvulsant medicines to help with seizures.
Connatal PMD - these individuals often die of respiratory complications during infancy or early childhood. If they get through this early period of life, they can live into their third decade of life.
Classic PMD - if these individuals survive past adolescence, they may live into their 40s or 50s.[6] This depends on the predominant phenotype - if this is predominantly spastic paraplegia, they can have a normal life expectancy.
SPG2 - these patients tend to have a normal lifespan.
There may appear to be periods of stability but the prognosis is for gradual deterioration.
As an X-linked disease it would be natural to expect that males are affected and females are carriers but females do have features of the disease.
Females have random inactivation of the X-chromosome, some females begin life with roughly half the normal and half the mutated X chromosome (heterozygous).
Females heterozygous for severe mutations show impermanent neurological abnormalities during childhood but symptoms regress (presumably as defective cells die and are replaced by healthy ones) and these individuals are neurologically normal as they reach adulthood.
Females heterozygous for less severe mutations, where the defective cells are not replaced with healthy ones will continue to have the defective PLP1 and will therefore have abnormal nuerologcial signs throughout thier life.
Carrier girls usually show no symptoms, however some may show some classical signs of PMD during their childhood. This symptoms will regress with age and the carrier female will be 'normal' as an adult.
Female carriers of less severe variations are usually normal in childhood but may develop symptoms in adulthood, including dementia.
Female carriers have a 1 in 2 chance of passing on the abnormal chromosome to a child, giving a 1 in 4 chance of having an affected son, a 1 in 4 chance of having a carrier daughter and a 1 in 2 chance of having a normal child, boy or girl. Molecular genetic analysis is the best technique for carrier detection.
Further reading & references.
information sourced from patient.info
© Copyright Triumph for Tomas 2016 | Privacy Policy
TriumphforTomas.org.uk
triumphfortomas@gmail.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
#odbsg21
From Reviewer to Renewed
A volunteer Chinese reviewer of Our Daily Bread takes on the challenge to serve God—and finds herself being transformed in the process.
The Chinese editorial team, including Liew Inn Shean (third from right), meets every quarter to review translations of Our Daily Bread and other biblical resources from the ministry.
When Liew Inn Shean was first asked to help review Chinese translations of Our Daily Bread, she never expected to be one of the first readers to gain from the life-changing wisdom of God's Word in such a personal way.
Although her task was to help ensure that Chinese translations of the articles were accurate, she soon discovered herself gaining from the work as much as she gave to it, as God used His living Word to transform her and make her more Christ-like.
The longtime volunteer's association with Our Daily Bread Ministries had started in 2006, after a friend from her Bible study class connected her with a ministry staff. Then in her 50s, the former teacher and wife of a Chinese pastor had agreed, believing she could use her bilingual ability, years of experience teaching English and literature, and familiarity with the Bible to serve God.
"I had just retired and my children were grown up, so I was quite free," she recalls. "And I thought I had an advantage knowing traditional Chinese."
Besides, adds Inn Shean, she herself had grown up reading Our Daily Bread. Having been introduced to the devotional since Sunday School, she had read it for many years, and found the articles inspiring and helpful in understanding more of God's Word.
"I wanted to serve God in whatever way I could," she says. "Besides, I love languages too!"
At first, Inn Shean was asked to just proofread the translated articles. But when she began to also give her comments on the content, staff from the Chinese translation team could see that she had more to offer.
"Her feedback on our translations were very good, and we accepted all her suggestions," recalls Georgina Wang, who heads the Chinese editorial team. "So we invited her to help review the translations with the editorial team."
From Teacher to Student
In the beginning, Inn Shean took to the task as a veteran teacher would—pointing out mistakes with a critical eye as she combed through the articles. At the quarterly reviews, she would join the team as they met to review the Chinese translations thoroughly.
Among other things, this team—which includes experienced translators, language experts, and Chinese pastors from around the region—checks that the translation accurately reflect the intention and meaning of the original pieces in English, while also being biblically precise. Where needed, they sometimes replace illustrations or phrases so that the articles will be culturally sensitive and relevant to readers across Asia.
"I would vet everything carefully and try to spot every single thing," says Inn Shean. "But as a former teacher, I tended to be judgmental and critical, always asking, 'Why is this written like that?' "
Over time, however, she noticed that her teammates took a slightly different approach to mistakes. "I was quick to jump on people, but the rest were very gracious," she recalls. "They would ask instead, "What does this mean?' It reminded me not to be so prickly, like a hedgehog, and to be more gracious in my reviews."
At the same time, Inn Shean also discovered God teaching her new things about her character and His ways through the articles she reviewed.
"Somehow, the articles would often speak directly to my circumstances or my struggles. God was using the materials to challenge or encourage me," she says.
For example, when she was struggling with health issues or feeling overwhelmed by parenting challenges at home, Inn Shean would find comfort and encouragement in an article that gave her hope to carry on.
She also saw God using His Word to continue His work of transformation in her life over the years.
"When I was younger, I used to be a perfectionist and more self-centred," she says. "I was less concerned about serving and more concerned about my own free time. But over the years, God mellowed me and made more ready to serve."
Still Serving Today
Today, Inn Shean continues to be an integral part of the quarterly review of the Chinese-language Our Daily Bread.
She believes that this is one way of using her God-given background, skill, and experience—and her free time—to serve Him. "I love languages, and I think God had prepared me for this task," she says.
Inn Shean, who was born in Malaysia, had grown up in a Chinese-speaking family and even married a Chinese pastor, but ended up being also fluent in English. In her own ministry, she also teaches English to students who need help in the language, and often helps her husband interpret when ministering to people during wake services and hospital visits.
"She's our model," says Georgina. "We're so inspired by her humility and by the way she carries out her works diligently and faithfully. She always makes time to help others even when she has her own challenges. She shows her love for God by serving others."
The ever-modest Inn Shean, however, is quick to play this down. "Well, I love languages and I love God's Word, and I'm learning so much about joy as I get older. It's an unexpected blessing."
Would you also like to share with our readers God's story in your life?


The simple methods of grilling and frying lend themselves to small cuts of pork, producing tender and flavourful meat in a matter of minutes. Grilling, in a ridged pan on the stovetop or under the grill, is perfect for cooking chops or pork kebabs; stir-frying in a wok over high heat is best for cooking pork strips.
For succulent and tasty meat, chargrilling on a stovetop grill pan is one of the best ways to cook thin or medium cut pork loin chops and it's healthier than pan-frying because it uses less fat. You can use the same technique for cooking under a conventional grill. Allow 6-8 minutes on each side, 5 cm away from the heat.
1. Snip fat and membrane at regular intervals. Brush with oil, press sage leaves into the meat and season.
2. Heat a stovetop grill pan until hot but not smoking. Add the chops and cook for 12-16 minutes, turning once.
Pork tenderloin, sliced on the diagonal, can be cut into strips and stir-fried.
1. Before stir-frying, marinate the pork strips for at least 30 minutes at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator. The highly flavoured ingredients of the marinade will make the meat more tasty and tender.
2. To stir-fry the pork, first heat a wok over a moderate heat until hot, then add the oil and heat until hot but not smoking. Add about one-third of the drained pork and toss it in the wok for 2-3 minutes, separating the strips with chopsticks. Repeat twice until all the pork is cooked, then return all the pork to the wok. If you follow these directions the meat will cook quickly and evenly and will not stick to the wok.


LineManager is a assembly line automation software that we build for one of the leading Bulgarian retail manufacturers – Top Man Ltd.
The product includes 11 points of interests, and monitors the production process of cloths, in Top Man's factory.
11 points of interest monitored.


text:
Oli McBurnie 'reminded of his responsibilities' by FA making 'obscene gesture' to Cardiff fans in South Wales derby
Barcelona 'contact' Mauricio Pochettino despite ex-Tottenham boss saying he would 'never go there' as Ernesto Valverde faces the sack
Jose Mourinho press conference: Tottenham manager on Gedson Fernandes transfer, Eriksen will start vs Middlesbrough despite Inter link
Sergio Aguero vs Thierry Henry: Why Arsenal legend is still the greater player despite being overtaken by Man City star
Onisports
Sport is life
Mauricio Pochettino has emerged as the shock favourite to be Barcelona's next manager despite previously insisting he would never go there.
Ernesto Valverde is under pressure at the LaLiga club despite topping the league and being through to the Champions League knockout stages.
The current boss has also won back-to-back league titles, but has so far failed to win Europe's elite club competition, losing out to Liverpool in the semi-final last year, and was dumped out of the Spanish Super Cup by Atletico Madrid.
Mauricio Pochettino could soon be returning to management
A series of poor displays have reportedly left bosses frustrated at the Catalan club and he could be fired in the next 24 hours.
Club legend Xavi had been touted as a replacement with reports over the weekend suggesting a deal had been struck.
That has fallen through, though, and he will remain at current club Al Sadd in Qatar.
Xavi is currently on charge at Qatari side Al-Sadd and will not be taking over at Barcelona
The tricky web of politics involved at Barcelona could be a reason for his hesitation to join at this stage. Xavi is an ally of Victor Font, who is planning to run against current club president Josep Maria Bartomeu, and he could be biding his time until then.
Ronald Koeman's name has also been mentioned but he is also thought to have rejected the possibility of replacing Valverde.
Spanish publication AS claim next in line is Mauricio Pochettino, who has been out of work since being sacked by Tottenham last year.
LIVE on talkSPORT
Check out all the LIVE commentaries coming up on talkSPORT, below…
Manchester United vs Wolves (Wednesday, 7:45pm) – talkSPORT
Fulham vs Middlesbrough (Friday, 7:45pm) – talkSPORT 2
Watford vs Tottenham (Saturday, 12:30pm) – talkSPORT
Arsenal vs Burnley (Saturday, 3pm) – talkSPORT 2
Newcastle vs Chelsea (Saturday, 5:30pm) – talkSPORT
The report says he has already been contacted over the role even though it is not yet vacant, although Valverde could walk before he is pushed over the club's public pursuit of his replacement.
Pochettino's previous comments about the possibility of managing Barcelona would suggest that he is unlikely to take the position. The 47-year-old played for and managed rivals Espanyol.
"I would never train Barcelona or Arsenal because I am tied to Tottenham. I grew up at Newell's and I would never train Rosario Central," he said while at Spurs.
He added that he would prefer to quit coaching than to coach Barcelona or any of the other teams.
"This is my decision. I would prefer to work on my farm in Argentina than to go and work in certain places."
Opinions do change, though, and opportunities at one of Europe's most historic clubs rarely comes around.
Mauricio Pochettino has emerged as the shock favourite to be Barcelona's next manager despite previously insisting he would never go there. Ernesto Valverde is under pressure at the LaLiga club despite topping the league and being through to the Champions League knockout stages. The current boss has also won back-to-back league titles, but has so […]
Transfer news and football gossip: Chelsea make Lewis Dunk enquiry, Tottenham's Christian Eriksen 'agrees' Inter move, Bruno Fernandes to Manchester United latest
Jack Grealish would walk into current Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham teams, claims Aston Villa legend Gabby Agbonlahor
PREVIOUS POST Previous post: Jose Mourinho press conference: Tottenham manager on Gedson Fernandes transfer, Eriksen will start vs Middlesbrough despite Inter link
NEXT POST Next post: Oli McBurnie 'reminded of his responsibilities' by FA making 'obscene gesture' to Cardiff fans in South Wales derby


text:
Tagged: North Pole
Features / Norwegian Heritage / Travel
Where does Santa live anyway?
From Finland to Norway to Alaska, the home of Santa Claus can make a fun family visit By Molly Jones So your little ones want to visit Santa—and not the one with the fake...
Oppdrag Nansen: Young Norwegians head to North Pole
Molly Jones Norwegian American Weekly As part of NRK Super's Oppdrag Nansen children's program, four kids had the experience of a lifetime: to travel in the Arctic and become the youngest Norwegians to ever...
Sailing around the North Pole
Norwegian adventurer and polar explorer Børge Ousland and his friend Thorleif Thorleifson have begun a voyage which they hope will take them through both the North East and the North West Passage. They left Oslo this...
Norwegian Polar adventurer wins Canadian book prize
On Nov. 5, Norwegian Polar adventurer Børge Ousland was awarded the prize for Best Adventure Travel book at the 2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival in Canada. Ousland (47), who hails from Oslo, won the award for...
Video from Ban Ki-moon's visit to Svalbard
UN chief sees climate change first-hand UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the Arctic on Sept. 1 to witness the effects of global warming ahead of key international climate talks in Copenhagen in December....
Ban sees first-hand view of climate change's impact
2 September 2009 – Standing on rapidly melting polar ice, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appealed to the world for urgent measures to be taken to combat climate change to protect the planet for future...
The search for Roald Amundsen's sea plane
A large-scale expedition leaves the port of Tromsø on Aug 30 for the Barents Sea to search for polar explorer Roald Amundsen's sea plane, named Latham 47. Amundsen disappeared in the plane 80 years...
Around the North Pole in one summer
A group of three Norwegians will this summer try to sail around the North Pole in one summer. If they complete the trip, they will be the first ever to do so. As global...
New survey of Arctic's mineral riches could stoke international strife
The battle for the Arctic's hidden mineral riches is likely to intensify after a survey revealing the energy reserves present beneath the ice. A map of potential oil and gas reserves in the region,...
UN backs Norway claim to Arctic seabed extension
OSLO (AFP) — Norway has won the backing of the UN in its sovereignty claim over a potentially resource rich area of seabed, including a region in the much-courted Arctic Ocean, the government...


Published 04/26/2019 04:34:59 am at 04/26/2019 04:34:59 am in Diy Metal Work.
diy metal work 7quotx14quot 550w 0618 3b mini metal lathe turning machine 220v metal work diy metal work plans diy virtual fretboard tutorial building a heavy duty smith workbench arizona some metalworking tools diy metal.
metal shaping introduction to hammerforming and planishing the sykespickavant rotary shear neatly trims the edges of compoundcurved sheetmetal parts, wholesale metal works diy d laser models assemble miniature jpg metal works , mw diy metal laser engraving machine w cnc laser work area mw diy metal laser engraving machine w cnc laser work area cm laser, x w b mini metal lathe turning machine v metal work quotxquot w b mini metal lathe turning machine v metal work, main made studios about, arizona response systems llc notes building a heavy duty in metal arizona response systems llc notes building a heavy duty in metal work bench ideas , free diy homemade metal workbench plans modelengineeringinthailandcom photo of painting the steel frame for the workbench in progress, diy metal work plans diy virtual fretboard tutorial building a heavy duty smith workbench arizona some metalworking tools diy metal , building a welding table top from plate how much bracing building a welding table top from plate how much bracing steel workbench, complete diy welding table and cart ideas designs see how others have handled storage for welding machines rods gas tanks angle grinders chop saw vises clamping and more see which work surfaces will , diy metal working and home furniture tasks are more sustainable for diy metal working and home furniture tasks are more sustainable for the planet and better for the household discover how to make helpful shopmade tools .


Holly V. Monroe is an Oregon-based third generation calligrapher with a deep appreciation for beautiful lettering and fine art. Tutored from childhood by her mother in art and her father in calligraphy, she has since studied under some of the world's finest calligraphy instructors. In 1980, Holly opened her own studio in Cincinnati under the family name, Heirloom Artists.
Holly's motivation is "to feed the soul by making meaningful words beautiful." She captures Biblical and inspirational texts with flourishes, florals, illustrations and colorful hand lettering.
Private commissions and design for the greeting card and gift industry comprise much of Holly's work, but her creative lettering and design is found in personal, commercial, corporate, university, church and several presidential collections. She teaches a variety of workshops and conference topics.
Holly's calligraphy and illustrations are found on framed prints and originals, commercial products, mission statements, resolutions, greeting cards and gifts items, custom books, magazines, family trees, wedding invitations and other imaginative items.
Her calligraphy has been commissioned for documents presented to U.S. Presidents George H. Bush and William J. Clinton, French President Jacques Chirac, Cincinnati entrepreneur Carl H. Lindner, and many other prominent officials.
In 2015 Holly relocated her Cincinnati studio to Lake Oswego, close to Portland Oregon, merging it with that of her equally talented father, Cliff Mansley. She has two grown children. Her son, Josh Monroe (wife Emily) recently opened Heirloom Artists Furniture Studio and Heirloom Artists Firearms Studio in New Hampshire. Daughter Heidi Monroe Lofton (husband Phil) currently works in the Design Technology industry in Indianapolis.


text:
Q: Sorting by case using Hibernate We have a typeahead that allows our customers to do a global search of their clients. Based on a 'filterText', we want to retrieve all the clients where any of the following fields contain the filterText: clientName, clientStreet, clientCity... but now there's a requirement and we want to prioritize the results where the clientName contains the filterText. (They should be shown first)
We currently create a customerSpecification, and the Predicate that it's being used is the following one:
return criteriaBuilder.or(
            criteriaBuilder.like(customerName, likeFilter),
            criteriaBuilder.like(customerStreet, likeFilter),
            criteriaBuilder.like(customerCity, likeFilter),
            criteriaBuilder.like(customerState, likeFilter),
            criteriaBuilder.like(customerZip, likeFilter),
            criteriaBuilder.like(customerCountry, likeFilter),
            tempPred
);

and then we use it to get the Page with all the results
customerRepository.findAll(customerSpecification, pageable);

How can we introduce this new requirement? Any approaches?
Some pages suggest to use selectCase, doing something like this:
Expression<Object> caseExpression = criteriaBuilder.selectCase()
                .when(criteriaBuilder.like(root.get(CustomerEntity_.name), likeFilter), 1)
                .otherwise(2);
Order order = criteriaBuilder.desc(caseExpression);
criteriaQuery.orderBy(order);

But I can't find the way to make it works. I also found some talks about PageRequest, which receives a Sort parameter, but I didn't find how it would help, as this object is too simple for what we're looking for.
Thanks

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Goodbye ATS? U.S. Appeals Court Dismisses South African Apartheid ATS Case and Rejects Narrow Reading of Kiobel
22 Aug Goodbye ATS? U.S. Appeals Court Dismisses South African Apartheid ATS Case and Rejects Narrow Reading of Kiobel
The Second Circuit's decision in Balintulo v. Daimler* (already discussed at length by John Bellinger at Lawfare) is one of the first major U.S.court opinions to apply the Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel. It is pretty much a complete smackdown of the ATS plaintiffs, and for any hopes they might have that the Kiobel decision's bar on extraterritoriality for ATS suits would be read narrowly. While they were at it, the Court pretty much kills every other kind of ATS lawsuit as well. In particular, it rejects the notion that mere corporate nationality in the U.S. would be enough to overcome the Kiobel bar. Here is a key passage (emphasis mine).
The Supreme Court's Kiobel decision, the plaintiffs assert, "adopted a new presumption that ATS claims must 'touch and concern' the United States with 'sufficient force' to state a cause of action." Plaintiffs Letter Br. 6 (quoting Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1669). The plaintiffs read the opinion of the Court as holding only that "mere corporate presence" in the United States is insufficient for a claim to "touch and concern" the United States, but that corporate citizenship in the United States is enough. Id. at 11 ("[I]nternational law violations committed by U.S. citizens on foreign soil 'touch and concern' U.S. territory with 'sufficient force' to displace the Kiobel presumption."). Reaching a conclusion similar to that of Justice Breyer and the minority of the Supreme Court in Kiobel, the plaintiffs argue that whether the relevant conduct occurred abroad is simply one prong of a multifactor test, and the ATS still reaches extraterritorial conduct when the defendant is an American national. Id. at 8–11.
We disagree. The Supreme Court expressly held that claims under the ATS cannot be brought for violations of the law of nations occurring within the territory of a sovereign other than the United States. Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1662, 1668–69. The majority framed the question presented in these terms no fewer than three times; it repeated the same language, focusing solely on the location of the relevant "conduct" or "violation," at least eight more times in other parts of its eightpage opinion; and it affirmed our judgment dismissing the plaintiffs' claims because "all therelevant conduct took place outside the United States," id. at 1669. Lower courts are bound by that rule and they are without authority to "reinterpret" the Court's binding precedent in light of irrelevant factual distinctions, such as the citizenship of the defendants. See Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237–38 (1997); see also Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 66–67 (1996). Accordingly, if all the relevant conduct occurred abroad, that is simply the end of the matter under Kiobel.
The Second Circuit also dismissed the plaintiffs' claim that the fact that there was some affirmative steps in support of the agents' conduct in South Africa, this would be enough to displace the presumption. The key holding is that the conduct giving rise to the violation of the law of nations must occur in the U.S.
Finally, the plaintiffs argue that the defendants "took affirmative steps in this country to circumvent the sanctions regime, though discovery would be necessary to determine the full scope of such U.S.-based conduct." … [But] The complaint alleges only vicarious liability of the defendant corporations based on the actions taken within South Africa by their South African subsidiaries. See In re South African Apartheid Litig., 617 F. Supp. 2d 228, 275 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) ("[A]llegations [of an agency relationship] are sufficiently plausible to allow this claim to proceed on a theory of vicarious liability."). Because the defendants' putative agents did not commit any relevant conduct within the United States giving rise to a violation of customary international law—that is, because the asserted "violation[s] of the law of nations occurr[ed] outside the United States," Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1669— the defendants cannot be vicariously liable for that conduct under the ATS.
Emphasis added.
I agree with the Court that this approach ("relevant conduct that violates the law of nations") is the most natural reading of Kiobel, I am less confident it fits with the historical purpose of the ATS, which did seem to have a particular interest in providing remedies against U.S. nationals. Although it seems clear from the history that the ATS was largely aimed at U.S. nationals in United States territory, there seems some possibility that it would apply to the actions of U.S. nationals abroad.
In any event, this reading of Kiobel is pretty much everything corporate ATS defendants could ask for, especially U.S. ones that might have been uncertain about their status. I doubt the Supreme Court will revisit this anytime soon, so expect a spirited en banc petition to get this reversed by the full appeals court. If that doesn't happen, the only remaining question is how much conduct in the U.S. would satisfy Kiobel (knowledge? active participation?). Balintulo doesn't resolve that question.
It also doesn't resolve whether Filartiga-like lawsuits involving foreign nationals who committed violations abroad but whom are now living in the U.S. can still be sued. Under Balintulo,I think the answer is no, which would mean the end of almost every ATS lawsuit against foreign government officials. If Balintulo is followed, the era of ATS lawsuits in the U.S. is coming to an end
*I forgot to note that Michael Ramsey and I, on behalf of a number of law professors, filed an amicus brief in Balintulo in support of the defendants.
John C. Dehn
The logic of this opinion strongly resonates with a lesser-emphasized section of the Supreme Court's Sosa opinion—one that dealt with the so-called "headquarters doctrine" that had developed in the lower courts related to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).
For those unfamiliar, the FTCA erects a jurisdictional bar to claims arising in a foreign country. The Sosa opinion clarified that a cause of action arises where the injurious act and actual injury occur. It rejected the notion that because some elements of the government's conduct were planned or approved of domestically that the case could be said to arise to some extent within the U.S.
Benjamin Davis
I agree with Julian and both Johns – congratulation for the success in gutting the ATS and closing the door to these claims for horrendous things that were done by corporations that are American or foreign in violation of international law. Congratulations – since the US government would not make such a case – for raising the burdens for injured plaintiffs so much higher as to make the task impossible under the ATS. Congratulations on having succeeded in expanding the space of impunity. Godwin's law moment: please read Edwin Black's 2000 book IBM and the Holocaust in which he meticulously lays out how IBM leadership sought the census contract soon after Hitler was made Chancellor in 1933 and the years of service in developing specialized card punch cards (80 bit standard had not yet been codified). Thanks to the sorters, Hitler's minions were able to create the lists of people to be stopped. Those famous numbers tattooed on concentration camp persons were actually numbers of the punch cards that were carried on the trains to the camps. When they opened the car doors, these punch cards were taken to a small building where the IBM sorting machines were used to… Read more »
Julian Ku


text:
Robert Schmitz
By Editor | December 29, 2017 | 1
Robert W. Schmitz, 80, of Carey, died Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, at 11:47 p.m. at Bridge Hospice Care Center in Findlay.
He was born in Seneca County on March 10, 1937. He was the son of the late Norbert and Helen (Gosche) Schmitz.
Robert married Diane Hotelling on Oct. 1, 1960, at Our Lady of Consolation Church in Carey. She survives in Carey.
Also surviving are their two children, Eric J. Schmitz and Stephanie E. Schmitz-Zimmerman and her husband Scot, both of Carey; five grandchildren, Adam, Cody, Nicholas, Olivia and Hannah; one great-granddaughter, Izabel; a sister, Eugenia (Bud) Pieracini, Kalamazoo, Mich.; three brothers, Paul Schmitz, Akron; Earl (Alma) Schmitz, Carey; and Jim (Janet) Schmitz, Risingsun.
He worked for General Electric in Tiffin for 30 years and also farmed the Schmitz family farms for many years.
An avid outdoorsman, he enjoyed hunting, skiing and golfing. He even had a bent grass green and chipping range at his home. If you did not see him on the farm, you would find him at the Plank Road Tavern socializing with all who entered. He was a member of the NRA, Tiffin Rifle League, New Reigel Moose Lodge and Our Lady of Consolation Church in Carey.
Bob was a true family man. He loved spending time with his family, especially his grandchildren.
Friends will be received on Tuesday, Jan. 2, from 3-7 p.m. at Stombaugh-Batton Funeral Home, Carey.
A Mass of Christian burial will be Wednesday, Jan. 3, at 10:30 a.m., at All Saints Parish-St. Nicholas Chapel, Frenchtown, with the Rev. Tim Kummerer officiating. Burial will follow at St. Nicholas Cemetery, Frenchtown.
Memorial contributions may be made to Bridge Home Health and Hospice or American Cancer Society in care of the Stombaugh-Batton Funeral Home, 225 West Findlay Street, Carey, OH 43316.
Online condolences may be sent to: StombaughBatton.com.
ralph vogel on January 3, 2018 at 11:39 am
please accept my condolences..


text:
British Cinema Ordered to Close After Refusing to Check COVID Passports
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Peter Caddle
A cinema in Wales has been ordered to close after refusing to check covid passports, stating that the passes infringe on human rights
The Swansea-based Cinema & Co. was ordered to close for 28 days by local authorities on Thursday for not following a number of COVID-19 related procedures, including "not implementing the COVID pass."
A post on the company's official Facebook page stated that they would not impose health checks, calling them "nonsensical [and] unnecessary," while claiming that vaccine passports are "an infringement of our human rights [and] discriminate against those exercising their right to bodily autonomy".
"We trust you as our valued customers to honour the responsibility that comes with these rights by staying at home if you feel unwell," the cinema continued.
"We will not discriminate against any customer based on age, race, gender, disability, creed or personal medical choices."
The local government in Wales, which implemented the requirement to show coronavirus passports in order to enter nightclubs, stadiums, and other large venues earlier this month, extended the rule to cinemas, concert halls and theatres on Monday.
As such, cinema-goers in Wales must now produce a health pass proving that they are either vaccinated or have tested negative for the Chinese coronavirus on a lateral flow test within the last 48 hours in order to gain entry.
Vaccine Passport Regime Imposed on Wales After Law Passed by Just One Vote https://t.co/6phQh7Feoz
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 12, 2021
Under current regulations in Wales, businesses must complete a COVID Risk assessment before opening their doors, which includes implementing COVID Pass checks if required by law or face a maximum fine for repeat offences of £10,000.
Wales was the second British nation to adopt the domestic use of health passes after Scotland's separatist government implemented them at the start of October.
According to the BBC, the Cinema remained open on Friday morning despite the order, with the owner, Anna Redfern, behind the till and about a dozen people inside the cinema's cafe.
Speaking to Wales Online, the owner said: "They keep changing the goalposts, they keep putting up more obstacles and I have a right to earn a living, it puts food on my kids' table and I'm a single mum, dealing with all this has been extremely challenging.
"There's a huge discrimination element to these passes and people aren't able to access their rights, we're in 2021 and we're discriminating against those who have chosen to exercise bodily autonomy.
"It just doesn't fit right with me, people from all walks of life are welcome at Cinema & Co."
The defiant stance of the cinema has attracted widespread support, with a crowdfunding campaign raising over £50,000 in the first two days, alone.
'Do as I Say, Not as I Do': Farage Slams Welsh Leader for Strict Covid Rules While Dancing Maskless at Diwali Party https://t.co/EbmLx4ppS2
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 16, 2021
HealthLocalLondon / EuropeChinese coronaviruscoronavirusCovid PassesCOVID-19United KingdomVaccine PassportsWales
JCN: Breyer 'Bullied' Into Retiring by 'Left-Wing Dark Money Groups'
Trudeau: Trucker Convoy 'Fringe Minority' with 'Unacceptable Views'


'Power Rangers: Battle of the Grid' is an upcoming game that fans have been waiting to play for decades. Here is everything that has been revealed so far.
Power Rangers is a franchise that has had many shows, movies, comics and the odd computer game during the 25 plus years of its history. Recently it was announced a new console based game for Power Rangers is set to be released in April 2019, but no solid date has yet been given. Announced through a trailer, Power Rangers Battle for the Grid is a game that is set to please many Ranger fan and will be widely available, being released on Steam, Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Switch.
The trailer showcased the graphics expected within the game, which are not all that bad. While they are not photorealistic graphics, they are far from lacklustre either. It appears the game will be similar to Power Rangers Legacy Wars, where a player takes control of a team of three Rangers to use in battle against another team. The big questions have yet to be answered.
Will this game hold a story mode similar to Injustice and Injustice 2, where a player faces AI opponents? Will the Rangers have set moves, or will there be a customisation feature? Will there be the option to battle other players via an online system? Will more Rangers be added through add-in content to purchase? These big questions have yet to be answered, but the game has revealed that Rangers from various series will appear in the game.
The trailer shows the original Red and Green Rangers joined by the Yellow Super Megaforce Ranger. This told fans instantly that it would be a cross-series game with many Rangers to show. No surprise, considering nWay are behind this game and have added Rangers from the TV shows, movie and comics in Power Rangers Legacy Wars. But, the interesting one is the reveal that Lord Drakkon will be playable, through the official website.
It really is no surprise to any reader of the Boom! Studios Power Ranger comics. Lord Drakkon is the villain at the centre of the "Shattered Grid" storyline within the comics. With the game having a title emulating a theme similar to the "Shattered Grid" storyline, it does suggest a storyline could be contained within the game. Chances are, the original Red and Green Rangers will be the initial characters and Lord Drakkon will aim to kill the past Tommy and claim the Mighty Morphin powers. Obviously, he will fail as you win the fight, and the pair will venture through the Grid to find more Rangers to stop Lord Drakkon, but that is pure speculation.
Let the battle for the grid begin!
The game has many mysteries yet to be revealed. But fans can get excited for a Power Rangers game that emulates the fighting games that every gamer has mashed away at, at some point. With nWay being part of the creative behind this game, we can be sure to expect the unexpected, as they have done so well with their game Power Ranger Legacy Wars.
What are your thoughts on this game? Are you set to join the Rangers and battle for the grid?


text:
Access 4 All Spokane
Celebrating and Encouraging Accessible and Disability Friendly Places, Services and Events across Spokane County
FIND ACCESSIBLE PLACES
Arts, Entertainment, Culture
Financial Services (Banks, Credit Unions)
Food, Groceries
Public Services, Government
Health, Medical, Dental, Mobility aids
Mass Media, Printing, Publishing
Recreation, Fitness
Restaurants, Coffee Shops
Travel, Hotel, Motel
About A4A Spokane
Our Mission, Vision, Values
Our Story: Part One "The idea"
Our story: Part Two "Getting together"
Our Story: Part Three "Who are we?"
Donate to A4A Spokane today
A4A Accessibility Checklist
Accessibility Ambassadors
Disability-friendly customer service
Links to groups we like
A4A Spokane Co-Founder Receives Access Award
October 5, 2016 Accessibilitydreynolds4
Access Spokane 2016 Individual Access Award
I am honored, amazed, and extremely jazzed to tell you that on Monday, October 3, I received the 2016 Individual Access Award from Access Spokane, at an event hosted by Spokane Mayor David Condon.
Here's a description of the award: It's a solid wood 8 X 10 plaque with shiny gold print on a dark metal background, and reads "Access Spokane, 2016 Individual Access Award, Presented to Dave Reynolds, for providing outstanding and dedicated service to citizens with disabilities in the Spokane community."
Ellen Nagourney, Vocational Services Specialist with the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, read the following statement as the Mayor presented the award:
"It is unlikely that anyone in our area that identifies as having a disability has not heard of Dave Reynolds.
"Dave started with The Arc of Spokane as a Client Support Services Coordinator in 2008. In that capacity, Dave promoted opportunities to enhance the quality of life for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.
"In 2012, Dave co-founded Access 4 All Spokane, a group that 'celebrates and encourages accessible and disability friendly places, services, and events' across Spokane County. He has trained a team of Accessibility Ambassadors who provide no-cost accessibility evaluations of local businesses and government campuses. These Accessibility Ambassadors help places become more aware of the challenges people with disabilities might face at their locations. In one short year, 100 places have been evaluated by Dave's teams of Ambassadors.
"In 2013, Dave helped organize the first Spokane County Accessible Communities Advisory Committee, whose purpose is to 'promote greater awareness of disability issues and improve access for, and inclusion and acceptace of, persons with disabilities in Spokane County'. This is accomplished in part by their advisory capacity with the Spokane County Board of County Commissioners and other local governments.
"Dave goes out of his way to advocate for individuals facing challenges within our community. The person who nominated Dave for this award, Larry Gorton, certainly appreciates the time and effort Dave spent supporting Larry in his persistent efforts to have ASL interpreters available at city neighborhood council and community assembly meetings. By the way, they were successful in their efforts.
"It is impossible for us to measure the true impact Dave has had on breaking down barriers to inclusion for people with disabilities of all ages through employment, residential, community access, training, education, advocacy, planning, and positive behavior support."
I am grateful to Mayor Condon, and appreciative of the organizers of the Access Spokane Awards.
Mostly, I am super grateful for my amazing friends with Access 4 All Spokane. It really feels awkward to accept this 'individual' award, considering that our work is such a team effort. I know they all would be telling me to get over myself already and accept the award. But, the truth is, none of this work could be done without their commitment, knowledge, expertise, and countless hours of work. Not to mention the personal advice and support they've given me, especially when things got tough.
So, if you want to watch a video of the presentation, it's about 11 minutes into the Mayor's weekly media briefing, on this YouTube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW9mqFkvA6Q
Thank you so much for all you do to make the world a better place for everyone!
Dave Reynolds, Coordinator
http://www.Access4AllSpokane.org
https://www.facebook.com/Access4AllSpokane/
← Three Access 4 All Spokane members up for award!!!	Successful Legislative Candidates Forum on Disability Issues →
One thought on "A4A Spokane Co-Founder Receives Access Award"
Micki Harnois says:
I had the privilege to see my little brother receive this award. He has been a passionate advocate for accessibility for many years. This is because he has always been a fair, caring person. Our parents would be so proud!
October 8: The best customer service is disability friendly June 17, 2019
Access 4 All Spokane presents at "Welcoming Different Voices" May 17 May 6, 2019
Disability friendly customer service: March 4 & March 18 February 22, 2019
Help empower the Spokane area to be even more disability-friendly — two free sessions December 31, 2018
Open letter to Inland Northwest businesses about snow removal December 8, 2018
Dan Evans on Nov 30: "Making Welcome" — Great customer service is disability-friendly
dreynolds4 on A4A Accessibility Checklist
Maribeth Crandell on A4A Accessibility Checklist
Waltraud Prast on City of Spokane wants your input on its snow removal plan!
Spokane Falls Community College on Successful Legislative Candidates Forum on Disability Issues


text:
A Very Special Episode
When Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault, he turned nothing into ratings
A Very Special EpisodeA single television episode can exemplify the spirit of its time. A Very Special Episode presents The A.V. Club's survey of TV at its most distinctive.
"There was nothing in Al Capone's vault / But it wasn't Geraldo's fault."
One standing criticism of television is that it's a disposable medium, endlessly replenished and easily washed away. But that's not necessarily so. Aside from the old tapes and films that have literally been destroyed, most everything that's been broadcast on TV over the decades is available in some multimedia conglomerate's archives. The rest lingers in our collective memory, befogged by all the fresh information that gets beamed our way every day. The challenge is to hold onto what we know and not let it get lost in the new.
Geraldo Rivera is one of the many TV personalities whose careers have been both helped and harmed by what might be called "the great forgetting." Rivera has a reputation as a self-promoting opportunist who'd gladly trash journalistic standards for the sake of ratings. But he actually began his career as an attorney and activist, who was seen early on as one of the bright young hopes of the broadcast news business, as dogged and politically plugged-in as he was handsome and silver-tongued. He was married to Kurt Vonnegut's daughter back then, and was looked at as the mainstream voice for a newly politicized Latino-American population. He even won a Peabody Award for his investigation into the abuse of disabled individuals at a Staten Island institution.
That should all be a big part of the Geraldo Rivera story. But so should the series of on-air embarrassments he's suffered over the years: the racially charged social commentary, the accidentally treasonous war correspondence, the platform his talk show gave to dangerous fringe groups, and, yes, The Mystery Of Al Capone's Vaults. The accumulation of "What the hell?" Rivera moments should be enough to make an informed viewer wonder why he still gets to appear on television regularly as a reporter, commentator, entertainer, or whatever else he's making himself out to be. After a certain point, his name and his screen presence began to matter more than his actual résumé.
Because the 30th anniversary of The Mystery Of Al Capone's Vaults happened this past spring, one of Rivera's most humiliating public moments was recently remembered again… for a while, that is. It's being framed much differently than it was back on April 21, 1986. The new conventional wisdom—not entirely incorrect—is that the Al Capone special was ultimately a success, because it pulled in a huge audience share and helped rebrand its host as the affable ringmaster for crazy televised stunts. This is the conclusion reached by many of the participants in the broadcast, who went on the record for a Mental Floss oral history earlier this year. At the time though, The Mystery Of Al Capone's Vaults was no triumph. It was a hype with no payoff, and roundly mocked.
The premise behind the special was both ingenious and ridiculous. Producers John Joslyn and Doug Llewelyn (yes, the guy from The People's Court) heard that 1920s mob boss Al Capone's old base of operations, Chicago's Lexington Hotel, was planning a renovation, and that the surveyors had discovered walled-off subterranean chambers on the property. Excited by the possibility of finding human remains (in the case of which, forensic examiners would be standing by) or caches of money (which IRS agents were prepared to seize), Joslyn and Llewelyn proposed a live broadcast around the demolition of the wall, because they knew that if they pretaped the big reveal, then the contents would be known well in advance of airtime.
Unable to convince any of the major networks to back a stunt with no clear outcome, Joslyn and Llewelyn partnered with the syndicator Tribune Entertainment. As it turned out, the networks were right to be wary. What the excavators found, ultimately, was nothing. A pile of dirt and a few empty bottles. No bones, no loot, no tommy guns or discarded fedoras. For two hours in primetime, Rivera hosted what amounted to a remedial documentary about gangsters and prohibition—complete with vintage clips and photos and interviews with historians—capped off by a few minutes at the end where he sheepishly admitted they'd wasted everyone's time.
The reviews were harsh. Even beyond the anticlimax, The New York Daily News was appalled by the glib romanticism of The Mystery Of Al Capone's Vaults, saying, "Rivera's cheerleader tone was incongruous with the violent subject… Disturbing was the tendency to glamorize the gangster, who was known as 'Scarface' and 'Public Enemy No. 1.' Rivera described him as 'charming and generous' at one point, but quickly added he was 'a mass murderer of his time.'"
But in the Mental Floss article, former Tribune Entertainment vice president Allan Grafman says that everyone at the company was pleasantly surprised when they saw the share of sets in use the next morning. "We thought it would do a 20. It did a 35. It was an enormous, colossal success. Nationally, we out-performed the networks—The Cosby Show, Family Ties." Even stranger, according to former Tribune president Sheldon Cooper, "The show played later on the West Coast and that was amazing. Even though the news was out, it still got phenomenal ratings."
Where the show came from has been an under-examined part of the larger story of how it was received. The mid-'80s were when TV's great fragmenting really began—when the expansion of cable channels and the big money poured into syndication started to break the stranglehold of ABC, CBS, and NBC, whittling down the monoculture. In October of 1986, six months after Rivera blasted open a dusty chamber, the Fox network launched, finding a home on the same kind of previously unaffiliated UHF stations that aired Al Capone's Vaults.
With cable subscriptions on the rise, over-the-air broadcasters were looking to compete, and one big way was sensationalism. For a long time, the perception of television was that it already catered to the lowest common denominator and that the best way to offer a true alternative in that market was to skew more highbrow. But the '80s saw the rise of trashy daytime talk and a trend to visually garish game shows, as well as "tune in or you might miss something shocking" one-offs like the Capone special.
It's hard to know exactly what viewers were expecting from The Mystery Of Al Capone's Vaults. (I was 15 years old at the time and watched it live, and even I couldn't tell you.) What the show seemed to promise was something in between watching a building implosion live on local news and seeing if Evel Knievel could jump over a canyon in a rocket car—with just a little sprinkling of Raiders Of The Lost Ark in the possibility that Rivera might walk into a room piled with buried treasure. And as always with anything hyped as "live" in the era of heavy content restrictions on broadcast TV, those of us who tuned in wondered if we'd hear or see something that the network censors wouldn't have allowed: a bad swear or a dude being crushed to death by a falling chunk of rock.
Watching the special now, what's remarkable is how slick it is, and how well Rivera distracts from the hour plus of documentary padding. Whatever his failings as a would-be exemplar of high broadcast standards, Rivera was and is a charismatic performer who commands the small screen with blustery confidence. Even when nothing at all is happening in The Mystery Of Al Capone's Vaults, the host makes it seem like he's just on the verge of a major discovery. And when he can't deliver the goods, he plays it off with a winningly apologetic smile.
Another aspect of the event that tends to be forgotten whenever it comes up today is that the Capone special was meant to be something of a comeback for Rivera. He'd been fired from his long-running, high-profile gig in ABC news the previous fall, due to a public dispute with his boss Roone Arledge over the latter's unwillingness to air a scandal-mongering 20/20 segment. He took this assignment—and a hefty payday—in hopes of reminding the industry that he was still in the game. To Mental Floss, Rivera described how the evening went for him, saying, "I knew everyone in the news business would be watching. And as the evening wore on, I had more and more of a sinking feeling."
He needn't have worried. One year later he signed back up with Tribune Entertainment for the "hard-hitting" syndicated talk show Geraldo, which ran for 11 seasons and quickly became one of the cultural elite's go-to examples for TV's race to the bottom. He later moved on to CNBC and Fox News and has continued to mix the probing reporting of his youth with the ratings-grubbing of Geraldo. Like a lot of talented telejournalists with high name recognition, Rivera has had little trouble staying employed.
One of the advantages of the TV business is that all a person has to do is keep staying on camera, and eventually any professional disgrace they may have suffered will fade. Because there's always something new happening, it's hard for the public to cling too long to outrage. The comforts of a familiar face end up mattering more than whether celebrities have done or said something that should disqualify them from getting paid millions to entertain us.
That's been an especially tricky fact of life during the 2016 presidential campaign, in which the cognitive dissonance has made it incredibly difficult to focus. What seem like monumental scandals are chased away by a fresh controversy every few days. Meanwhile, the two major candidates have been in the public eye for so long that their pasts—not their hidden pasts, but things they did and said that were reported in the papers at the time—keep popping back up as though they'd just happened. We forget. And we keep forgetting.
A big cliché in TV news is the phrase "only time will tell," as a vague way to end a report while seeming to remain neutral and objective. But time doesn't tell. Time keeps changing its damn mind. First Al Capone is a murderous public menace, and then he's an iconic American figure. A journalist becomes a laughingstock, and then he's back to being an authoritative voice on television. Our two political parties have what seem to be intractable positions on policy and moral character, and then they gradually switch sides over time. We think we know our own cultural history. We think we have a firm grounding for what we're certain is true and right. But maybe we'd best not dig too deep, lest we find only a cloud of dust and an empty room.
Next time… on A Very Special Episode: Julia, "I'm Dreaming Of A Black Christmas"


Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, often referred to as "Pearl Bridge", was completely engulfed in thick fog on Thursday, creating an otherworldly scene. The featured image above has been retweeted over 5,000 times and reminds many netizens of the movie, The Mist. It also has everyone wondering just what is hiding in the thick clouds.
The bridge is just as beautiful without a mystical haze lapping at the structure.
But the addition of fog transforms it into a menacing, yet enticing pathway. Where does it go to?
Regardless of what may or may not be lurking in the fog or any teleportals to other worlds that might have been created, one thing is for sure: Nature is freaking awesome…and a little scary.
Reblogged this on O C T A G O N.


text:
Sakakibara, M. and Branstetter, L. (2001) Do Stronger Patents Induce More Innovation? Evidence from the 1998 Japanese Patent Law Reforms. Rand Journal of Economics, 32, 77-100.
TITLE: Should We Enhance or Restrict Technological Diffusion from Major to Minor Firms?
AUTHORS: Hideki Nakamura, Takeshi Ikeda
KEYWORDS: Asymmetric Cournot Duopoly, R & D Competition, Technological Diffusion, Free-Riding and Taking-Away Effects
JOURNAL NAME: Theoretical Economics Letters, Vol.8 No.11, August 13, 2018
ABSTRACT: This study examines how technological diffusion from a major firm to a minor firm affects social welfare via R & D competition in an asymmetric Cournot duopoly. We assume that the minor firm can decrease its production cost because of the spillover effect arising through R & D by the major firm. R & D by the minor firm depends on the free-riding effect and a taking-away effect that removes market share from the major firm. If given a low R & D cost, both firms invest in R & D with an appropriate level of technological diffusion, we can obtain a high level of social welfare. However, an increase in the level of technological diffusion could make the major firm abandon R & D activity. Given a high R & D cost, a high level of welfare can be obtained only with a low level of technological diffusion because the potential presence of technological diffusion easily disrupts R & D by the major firm.
An Analysis of the Effectiveness of Sanctions as a Law Enforcement Tool in International Law: A Case Study of Zimbabwe from 2001 to 2013
Cynthia Chipanga, Torque Mude
Open Journal of Political Science Vol.5 No.5, October 21, 2015
DOI: 10.4236/ojps.2015.55031
How Do Auditors Respond to Corporate Innovation Activities
—Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management Vol.10 No.1, January 20, 2020
DOI: 10.4236/ajibm.2020.101012
Package Licenses in Patent Pools with Basic and Optional Patents
Kenji Azetsu, Seiji Yamada
Modern Economy Vol.4 No.1, January 30, 2013
DOI: 10.4236/me.2013.41002
Exterior Sourcing and Technology Distinctness as Indicators for Radical Innovations: Evidence from Patents in Information Technology Industry
Avimanyu Datta
Technology and Investment Vol.2 No.3, August 24, 2011
DOI: 10.4236/ti.2011.23020
The Evolution of Distribution of Technology Transfer in China: Evidence from Patent Licensing
Yuqing Cai
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management Vol.8 No.5, May 21, 2018
DOI: 10.4236/ajibm.2018.85084


text:
\section{Large-Scale View-Aware Adaptation}
In the context of view-dependent point-cloud streaming in a scene, our rate allocation is ``adaptive'' in the sense that it priorities the point-cloud models depending on the camera view and the visibility of the objects and their distance as described. The algorithm delivers higher bitrate to the point-cloud models which are inside user's viewport, more likely for the user to look at, or are closer to the view camera or, while delivers lower quality level to the point-cloud models outside of a user's immediate viewport or farther away from the camera. For that purpose, we hereby explain the rate allocation problem within the context of multi- point-cloud streaming where multiple point-cloud models are aimed to be streamed to the target device, and propose a rate allocation heuristic algorithm to enable the adaptations within this context. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to mathematically model, and propose a rate allocation heuristic algorithm within the context of point-cloud streaming.

The rate selection and allocation problem is the well-known binary Knapsack optimization problem, for which one approach to tackle is to transmit a subset of the whole point clouds within the 360-degree environment. The binary Knapsack problem is NP-hard, but efficient approximation algorithms can be utilized (fully polynomial approximation schemes), so this approach is computationally feasible. However, using this method only a \textit{subset} of the whole point clouds are selected, which is not desired since the user intends to receive \textit{all} the necessary point clouds. Our proposed algorithms select all necessary point clouds, however, with different bitrates according to the models' priorities given the user's view. This is a \textit{multiple-choice knapsack problem (MCKP)} in which the items (point cloud models in our context) are organized into groups corresponding to the items. Each group contains higher bitrate point clouds corresponding to a model and lower-bitrate versions of the same point cloud model given the adaptation manifest that we have designed.

\begin{figure}[!t]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\columnwidth]{pc.jpg}
\caption{An example point cloud prioritization in a viewport. Point clouds closer to the camera are assigned highest priority ($C_1$) and therefore higher quality representation, while point clouds farther away are assigned lowest priority ($C_3$), and therefore, lower quality representation.}
\label{fig:priority}
\end{figure}
There are $n$ point cloud models $\mathcal{T}=\{\tau_1,\tau_2,\ldots,\tau_n\}$ in the 360-degree environment. The highest possible representation of each $\tau_h \in \mathcal{T}$ has a bitrate requirement of $s_{\tau_h}$ and a priority or importance coefficient of $p_{\tau_h}$ given it's view or distance. With view awareness feature, our algorithm assigns highest priority ($C_1$) to the point clouds more important for the user's view (within the user's immediate viewport or closer), and lowest priority ($C_3$) to the point clouds (either outside of user's immediate viewport or farther away). Figure \ref{fig:priority} illustrates how our prioritization approach is applied against point cloud models inside a 3D scene. We assume the quality contribution of a point-cloud $\tau_h$ is a simple function $q_{\tau_h} = p_{\tau_h}\times s_{\tau_h}$. The available bandwidth in every interval limits the total bitrate of all point clouds that can be received at the receiving device to $W$, which serves as an available bandwidth budget. Our rate allocation heuristic is general, and can be employed based on any number of priority classes, or any type of available resources, such as energy budget or available CPU processing power. In this pilot study, we use three priority classes, and assume $W$ to be the available bandwidth.

Let $X= \{x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_n\}$, be the set of point clouds which are received at the device, serving as the output of running rate allocation algorithm. Each $x_i \in X$ corresponds to an original point cloud $\tau_i \in \mathcal{T}$. Similarly, each $x_i$ has a priority coefficient $p_{x_i} = p_{\tau_i}$ depending on the view.

We assume there are $L$ number of point clouds representations available given the manifest, with a representation of level $k$ noted as $R_k$ ($0 \leq k \leq L$) and the bitrate of a point cloud $\tau_i$ with representation $R_k$ noted as $s_{\tau_i}^{R_k}$. We assume the lowest bitrate corresponds to the representation with the highest ID (i.e. $R_L$) which is determined as the \textit{minimum bitrate} that is acceptable for a user. In a similar way, the quality contribution of a point cloud $x_i$ is $q_{x_i}=p_{x_i}\times s_{x_i}$.

\subsection{Heuristic Algorithm}

\begin{algorithm}[!t]
\begin{algorithmic}
\State $\mathcal{T}$: prioritized list of point clouds sorted from highest to lowest priority
\State $\tau_i$: point cloud with highest bitrate $s_{\tau_i}$
\State $x_i$: adapted point cloud with bitrate $s_{x_i}$
\State $L$: Number of representation levels
\State $R_L$: Level $L$ representation
\State Calculate $W_{min} = \sum s_{\tau_i}^{R_L}$ \%comment: minimum bitrate requirement for all point clouds
\State $\forall \tau_i \in \mathcal{T}: s_{x_i} \gets s_{\tau_i}^{R_L}$ \%comment: assign $R_L$ (minimum bitrate) to all $\tau_i$'s.
\State $W_0 \gets W - W_{min}$ \%comment: initialization
\While {$s_{\tau_i}- s_{\tau_i}^{R_L} \leq W_{i-1}$}
\%comment: i=1 initially.
\State $s_{x_i} \gets s_{\tau_i}$
\State $W_i \gets W_{i-1} - (s_{\tau_i}- s_{\tau_i}^{R_L})$
\State{ $i \gets i+1$~~\%comment: adapt next point cloud}
\EndWhile \\
\%comment: above loop repeats until a point cloud $\tau_{\ell}$ cannot be delivered at highest bitrate within the remaining bandwidth budget $W_{\ell-1}$.
\State $\ell \gets i$ \%comment: resulting from above loop.
\State{Find lowest $L' \leq L$ such that \\$s_{\tau_\ell}^{R_{L'}} \leq W_{\ell-1}+ s_{\tau_\ell}^{R_L}$ ~~\%comment: determines the highest bitrate possible at which $\tau_{\ell}$ can be received within remaining budget, by calculating the lowest representation level $L'$.}
\State{ $s_{x_{\ell}} \gets s_{\tau_\ell}^{R_{L'}}$ \%comment: adapt $\tau_{\ell}$ and calculate $s_{x_{\ell}}$}
\end{algorithmic}
 \caption*{Rate allocation heuristic algorithm for point cloud streaming}
\end{algorithm}

Let $S$ be the total bitrate requirement of all point clouds, and $W$ be the available bandwidth budget. The minimum quality acceptable for users is given as the representation of level $L$ noted as $R_{L}$. Let $C_{1}$, $C_{2}$, and $C_{3}$ be the class of point clouds with the highest priority, medium priority, and lowest priority, respectively.

For each point cloud $\tau_i$ in $\mathcal{T}$, we calculate $q_i$ as described previously. This is the contribution that $\tau_i$ would make to the average quality of the 3D world system if it were received at highest bitrate possible. We then calculate $W_{\min} = \sum s_{\tau_i}^{R_L}$ which is the minimum bitrate that is needed to receive all point clouds at their lowest bitrates. In the following, assume that $W_{\min} \leq W$ so the unused bitrate budget would be $W_0=W-W_{\min}$.

To determine the best bitrate for each point cloud, our algorithm sorts the prioritized list of point clouds by the global priority from the largest to the smallest. For ease of notation in the following, suppose that the point clouds are re-indexed so that the sorted list of point clouds is $\tau_1,\tau_2,\ldots,\tau_n$. If $s_{\tau_1}- s_{\tau_1}^{R_L}\leq W_0$ then there is enough unused budget to receive $\tau_1$ at highest bitrate ($R_0$), so the point cloud $x_1$ would have $s_{x_1}=s_{\tau_1}$ and would contribute $q_1$ to the average quality. This leaves an unused bandwidth budget of $W_1=W_0 - s_{\tau_1}^{R_0}- s_{\tau_1}^{R_L}$ for the remaining point clouds after $x_1$. The algorithm repeats for $\tau_2, \tau_3,\ldots$ until some point clouds $\tau_{\ell}$ cannot be received at highest bitrate within the remaining budget $W_{\ell-1}$. It then determines the highest possible bitrate at which it can be received by calculating the lowest representation level $L': L'\leq L$ such that $s_{\tau_\ell}^{R_{L'}} \leq W_{\ell-1}+ s_{\tau_\ell}^{R_{L}}$. The point cloud $x_{\ell}$ will have bitrate $s_{x_{\ell}} = s_{\tau_\ell}^{R_{L'}}$ and will contribute $q'_{\ell}$ to the average quality of the whole. The remaining bandwidth budget after streaming $x_{\ell}$ will be $W_{\ell} = W_{\ell-1} - s_{\tau_\ell}^{R_{L'}}$. The algorithm repeats this process to determine the proper bitrates, amount of bandwidth budget, and quality contribution for each of the remaining point clouds $x_{\ell+1},x_{\ell+2},\ldots,x_{n}$.

The algorithm needs a one-time implementation in the beginning of the session for the main process. Therefore it is implemented in real-time and does not provide any additional overhead during the runtime. It is implemented efficiently in $O(n log n)$ time and $O(n)$ space and produces solutions close optimal. The approximation error depends on the difference between the bitrate chosen for the first point cloud that cannot be received at highest bitrate (i.e. $\tau_\ell$) and the remaining budget available to receive it.

\section{References}
\begin{itemize}
\item M. Hosseini and C. Timmerer, "Dynamic Adaptive Point Cloud Streaming", In Proceedings of the 23rd Packet Video Workshop, 2018. ACM, New York, 1--7.
\item M. Hosseini, V. Swaminathan, "Adaptive 360 VR video streaming: Divide and conquer!", IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (ISM), San Jose, 2016.
\item M Hosseini, Y Jiang, RR Berlin, L Sha, H Song, "Toward physiology-aware DASH: Bandwidth-compliant prioritized clinical multimedia communication in ambulances", IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 2017.
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


The Utahraptor was originally discovered in Utah, hence its name, it is from our dinosaur collection. This is a life size replica that will blow away any audience. You can place the dinosaur in your business, exhibit, or use for a themed event. It is full of intricate details that show case the uniqueness of the Utahraptor.
DIMENSIONS: L91" x W42" x H117"


Discharge of charge is a rather broad term, but in the property industry this refers to when a mortgage is formally paid off. When this happens, the lender's Charge over the home is finally released. From this point on, neither the mortgage lender nor the bank can hold any claim to the property.
Unfortunately, some lenders may still require the property owner to pay an exit fee before they can discharge the mortgage. This fee, which is outlined in the owner's mortgage documents, may be higher if the mortgage is paid off earlier than the date agreed in the original contract.


text:
Q: Long Rails 6 migration printout I upgraded from rails 5.2.3 to 6.1.0 and noticed that my migration log for add_reference has changed.
With Rails 5 it simply had:
-- add_reference(:categories, :user, {:foreign_key=>true})
  -> 0.0063s

With Rails 6 I get this:
-- update_table_definition(:categories, ...)
   -> 0.0001s
-- add_column("categories", "user_id", :bigint, {})
   -> 0.0027s
-- add_index("categories", ["user_id"], {})
   -> 0.0041s
-- add_foreign_key("categories", "users", {:column=>"user_id"})
   -> 0.0021s

Which is a problem because the second parameter of update_table_definition (the ... part) is an instance of my migration class and prints 4 screens of text.
Is there a way to get back the simple printout of Rails 5? I know I can turn off migration logs with VERBOSE=false, but then I lose all the migration logs.
The add_reference method and missing_parameter, say_with_time methods (that prints the logs) seemingly didn't change between the two Rails versions.


text:
De James Tiptree Jr.-prijs is een jaarlijkse literaire prijs voor sciencefiction- of fantasy-boeken die de kennis of het begrip van gender verkennen. Sciencefiction-auteurs Pat Murphy en Karen Joy Fowler stelden de prijs in februari 1991 in na een paneldiscussie op WisCon, een sf-conventie in Wisconsin (VS).

Achtergrond
De prijs is vernoemd naar Alice B. Sheldon die schreef onder het pseudoniem James Tiptree Jr. Door het kiezen van een mannelijk pseudoniem waaronder haar verhalen werden geaccepteerd door uitgevers en waaronder ze prijzen won, toonde Sheldon aan dat er geen onderscheid bestond tussen mannelijk en vrouwelijke sciencefiction-verhalen.

Jaren nadat Tiptree sf-verhalen publiceerde schreef Sheldon ook boeken onder het vrouwelijke pseudoniem Raccoona Sheldon; pas later ontdekte de sciencefiction-fans en -uitgevers dat Tiptree al die tijd een vrouw was. Deze ontdekking leidde tot een wijdverbreide discussie over de vraag of er aspecten aan het schrijven bestaan die een specifiek geslacht hebben. Om het publiek te herinneren aan de rol van gender in zowel het lezen als het schrijven van verhalen stelde Karen Joy Fowler voor de nieuwe prijs naar Sheldon te vernoemen.

Winnaars
 Retrospectieve prijs voor Motherlines en Walk to the End of the World door Suzy McKee Charnas; The Left Hand of Darkness door Ursula K. Le Guin; The Female Man en When It Changed door Joanna Russ
 1991: A Woman of the Iron People door Eleanor Arnason en White Queen door Gwyneth Jones
 1992: China Mountain Zhang door Maureen F. McHugh
 1993: Ammonite door Nicola Griffith
 1994: The Matter of Seggri door Ursula K. Le Guin en Larque on the Wing door Nancy Springer
 1995: Waking The Moon door Elizabeth Hand en The Memoirs Of Elizabeth Frankenstein door Theodore Roszak
 1996: Mountain Ways door Ursula K. Le Guin en The Sparrow door Mary Doria Russell
 1997: Black Wine door Candas Jane Dorsey en Travels With The Snow Queen door Kelly Link
 1998: Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation door Raphael Carter
 1999: The Conqueror's Child door  Suzy McKee Charnas
 2000: Wild Life door Molly Gloss
 2001: The Kappa Child door Hiromi Goto
 2002: Light door M. John Harrison en Stories for Men door John Kessel
 2003: Set This House In Order: A Romance Of Souls door Matt Ruff
 2004: Camouflage door Joe Haldeman and Not Before Sundown door Johanna Sinisalo
 2005: Air door Geoff Ryman
 2006: The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden door Catherynne M. Valente en Half Life door Shelley Jackson; speciale erkenning voor de biografie James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon door Julie Philips
 2007: The Carhullan Army door Sarah Hall
 2008: The Knife of Never Letting Go door Patrick Ness en Filter House door  Nisi Shawl
 2009: Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales door Greer Gilman door Ōoku: The Inner Chambers door Fumi Yoshinaga
 2010: Baba Yaga Laid an Egg door Dubravka Ugresic
 2011: Redwood and Wildfire door  Andrea Hairston
 2012: The Drowning Girl door Caitlin R. Kiernan en Ancient, Ancient door Kiini Ibura Salaam
 2013: Rupetta door N. A. Sulway
 2014: The Girl in the Road door Monica Byrne en My Real Children door Jo Walton
 2015: The New Mother door Eugene Fischer en Lizard Radio door Pat Schmatz
 2016: When the Moon Was Ours door Anna-Marie McLemore

Noten

Fantasyprijs
Sciencefictionprijs

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
The Big Squeeze: How Americans Are Being Crushed by Financial Insecurity and Doubt |
The Big Squeeze: How Americans Are Being Crushed by Financial Insecurity and Doubt
May 19, 2011Economy
The Great Recession officially started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. It was the gravest financial crisis the nation has faced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Sadly, most Americans have yet to recover.
It fostered what many call the "new normal," the unspoken sense that America is stuck if not in decline. This new sensibility bears profound consequences; foremost is the recognition that Americans are living lives of lowered expectation and intensified financial uncertainty.
The "American Century" is over. The great historical phase of America's domestic prosperity and global hegemony is withering. In the decades following the Second World War, American capitalism fashioned the postmodern, and increasingly globalized, world order. In the process, it abandoned America and the American people.
We first witnessed the transfer of jobs overseas, rationalized as "throwaway" or low-skilled jobs. Then came the growing dependency of foreign borrowing, rationalized by the U.S.'s ostensible credit worthiness. Now, America's great corporations, like GE and GM, are earning more overseas than at home, accompanied by generous domestic tax breaks. More disturbing, the U.S. military-industrial-political establishment repeatedly embarks on doomed "great war" campaigns that rob the nation of its young, its wealth and its ideals.
Domestically, over the last three decades the rich have systematically expropriated the middle-class's sizable and hard-earned wealth. It has been the most massive transfer of wealth in the nation's history, with the gravest consequences. It has been a period of legalized robbery.
The decades following WWII witnessed the middle-class accumulating significant wealth as measured in the pride of home ownership, the glamour of a new car, the accomplishment of sending one's kid to college, the security of good health and assured retirement. It was a period marked by the narrowest income gap separating the rich and the poor in the nation's history. It fostered the great social, legal, technological and cultural movements that distinguish the post-war era -- civil rights, Roe v. Wade, a man on the moon and the counterculture.
Today, the U.S. is stuck, confronting an historical sea change. Most Americans live at the intersection of earning the next dollar and paying the latest bill. This is the powerful vice of the Big Squeeze, of financial uncertainty and doubt, of living holding one's breath.
Nearly everyone feels squeezed by the Big Squeeze, excepting, of course, those rolling in dough or too naïve to care. A November 2010 Rasmussen poll found that just over one-third (37 percent) of respondents believe America's best days are still ahead; sadly, nearly half (47 percent) said the nation's best days were in the past. A recent New York Times front-page article announced: "New Poll Shows Darkening Mood Across America." [NYT, April 22, 2011]
Capitalism is being restructured, and in the process, Americans are being disciplined, forced to accept a poorer quality of life. The process of social and personal "reeducation" now being imposed on the vast majority of Americans is the Great Squeeze, it is the process of accepting a qualitatively more miserable life.
Big Squeeze is revealed in many ways. The clearest examples are the key economic indicators, particularly those detailing the growing income gap and the resulting social consequences. In a recent report, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) finds that, "since 1983 the top 5% of wealth holders consistently held more than 50% of all wealth, but the share increased from 56.1% in 1983 to 63.5% in 2009. The bottom 80% of wealth holders consistently held less than 20% of all wealth, but the share declined from 18.7% in 1983 to 12.8% in 2009."
In simplest terms, the rich have gotten richer, amassing an ever-greater share of social wealth, while the rest of us, especially the poor, have gotten poorer.
EPI's findings lay out the broad terrain on which the Big Squeeze is played out. More disturbing are the innumerable ways it is experienced in the lives of ordinary Americans.
First and foremost of these ways is the growing wage gap. The U.S. Census Bureau found that while the GDP increased nearly three-fold between 1970 and 2000 (from $3.8 trillion to $9.8 trillion), the average "real weekly wage" fell by 14 percent between 1970 and 1996. The following table documents this income stagnation.
Poorest (lowest 20%
Median (50%)
Wealthiest (top 5%)
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2004
As EPI notes, "the typical worker has had stagnating wages for a long time, despite enjoying some wage growth during the economic recovery of the late 1990s." In the wake of the Great Recession, this situation has only gotten worse.
To compensate for the erosion of earnings among male head-of-household workers, American society adjusted. First, women entered the workforce in ever growing numbers, helping launch the second-generation women's movement and normalizing the two-income household. Second, Americans went into debt, big-time.
The U.S. Labor Department estimates the female workforce participation grew from two-fifths (40 percent) in 1975 to three-fifth (60 percent) in 2008. It reminds us: "The long-term increase in the female labor force largely reflects the greater frequency of paid work among mothers."
The income stagnation that affected the vast majority of Americans and characterized the period between 1970 and 2000 was hidden in the gluttony of consumerism. Average consumption per person increased 66 percent during this three-decade period. To pay for this fictitious luxury, Americans went into debt.
During the latter decades of the 20th century, personal debt incurred in home mortgages, car loans, tuition loans and credit-card purchases soared. The Federal Reserve estimated total household debt in 2010 at $13.4 trillion or 116 percent of disposable income; reflecting the Big Squeeze, household debt has declined from the peak year of 2007 – the year before the bubble burst -- when it reached 130 percent. Debt should continue to erode as people hold onto the little they make.
The days of consumer gluttony are over. The ranks of the unemployed and the underemployed are estimated at 14 million. Older workers, including those with a college degree, are especially vulnerable, even those willing to take lower-wage jobs to simply hold on. Lower-skilled younger adults between 18 to 34 years, especially minority people, have witnessed the largest jump in poverty. This has led many to double-up in housing with parents, friends and loved ones, let alone growing numbers calling their car home and, finally, the increasing number of the homeless.
The Big Squeeze is taking its toll on all aspects of the lives of a growing number of Americans. Home ownership is down, as is the savings rate. However, there has been a significant increase in the number of U.S. households receiving food stamps and visiting food banks.
The area of personal life taking the biggest hit is health care, as reflected in the rise in the uninsured and emergency room visits. A 2009 report by the American Optometric Association found more than a third (36 percent) of Americans are limiting their doctor visits, including 63 percent cutting dental visits, 59 percent cutting visits to primary care physician and 52 percent cutting visits to eye doctors. Two years later, things have surely gotten worse. The failure to provide quality health care to a growing segment of Americans will have the gravest impact on the nation's long-term development.
Progressive resistance to the Big Squeeze has been slow in coming. The Tea Party movement expressed the first round of popular rage, reflecting the genuine fears of a segment of the aging, insecure, white (often racist) and conservative Christian populace. It screamed loud and was heard.
However, having been organized and funded by well-financed conservative and Republican operatives, the politicians and legislative solutions it championed are turning out to only make worse the lives of an increasing number of the more vulnerable Tea Party proponents. Tea Party ideology and politics is being exposed as a con job.
The response among more self-conscious progressives, the broad moderate citizenry (i.e., the majority of the voting public) and decent, apolitical Americans, has been slow to come to a boil. In light of the uprising in Madison and the growing number of angry constituents greeting Republican Congressmen throughout the country, political resistance is beginning to bubble up.
There is, however, a form of resistance that takes place everyday, but is invisible to the media and traditional political analysis. It occurs at the friction points of the Big Squeeze, where the values and/or authority of the more middle-class or managerial sector rubs up against the reality lived by poor and low-wage working Americans. These are the junctures where everyday class power is exercised and inchoate social struggle is waged.
Lisa Dodson's recent book, The Moral Underground, analyzes the friction points played out in the social relations that define low-wage jobs, in the classroom and in healthcare institutions. They are the settings where Americans confront profound, often deeply perplexing, moral challenges. These moral confrontations involve those on both sides of the economic and power divide.
Dodson calls these points of resistance to the Big Squeeze the "moral underground." Everyday, those with power, including managers, supervisors, teachers and health care professionals – and the list can go on and on – make decisions that determine the fate of employees, students or the ill and their families. Dodson sees these points of friction serving as moments for moral resistance to the dictates of business-as-usual. For those in authority, subverting corporate protocols and procedures can involve risking their jobs. And they are doing it.
Resistance to the Big Squeeze will likely intensify over the next two years as the nation builds to the 2012 election. The most visible form of this resistance will likely be protest marches, strikes and other public demonstrations. A new, emboldened progressive movement may well take shape.
As this occurs, we shouldn't lose sight of the more invisible, but mounting, resistance of the moral underground. As it grows, it may undermine one of the great social fictions grounding American capitalism: That one leaves one's morals and politics at the office, factory or store door when one enters the job site. This fiction is based on the well-propagated notion that when one sells one's labor power one leaves one's personal beliefs and values at home. This social fiction is crumbling under the pressure of the Big Squeeze.
Donald Trump's griping about evangelical 'disloyalty' was an order to get in line
Elon Musk claims he suffered 'major side effects' after taking the COVID booster shot
'I lost control': Tucker Carlson issues rare apology after bizarre meltdown over NYT essay
Legal expert calls for new Brett Kavanaugh investigation amid explosive documentary allegations
House Republican fact-checked after calling President Joe Biden 'a serial classified document hoarder'
'I'm asking about you': CBS host shuts down GOP lawmaker's attempt to 'both sides' election denial
Ex-prosecutor: Donald Trump keeps handing investigators 'incriminating evidence from heaven'
Capitol rioter identified by huge stomach tattoo sentenced to 78 months in prison
'Fell woefully short': Director of damning Brett Kavanaugh documentary slams FBI for lacking investigation
'Nice try': GOP Congressman says Marjorie Taylor Greene has 'matured' since spreading 9/11 conspiracies


In today's Daily Noise, brought to you by Fuse and Billboard.com from the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, we catch up with Green Day about winning Best Rock Album for "21st Century Breakdown". Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and producer Butch Vig talk about working to live up to previous album "American Idiot," which has now been adapted for the stage, and about performing with the show's cast at the Grammys. Alice Cooper also weighs in on why he thinks Green Day took home the trophy.


Are you interested in buying a lift chair recliner in Hesperia, CA? Read on as we'll teach you about lift chairs, buying or renting one, and where to do so. We go over price and add ons so you'll understand how much stuff should cost. We'll also educate you on how a manufacturer's guarantee should be. At the bottom of this page are local retailers for lift seat and medical mobility equipment.
Power lift chair recliners are available in 2 position, 3 position, and infinite position types. Two position power lift chair recliners are able to go into a 15 degree recline and the sitting posture. Three position lift chair recliners can go into a 15 and 45 degree recline and the sitting position. Infinite position lift chairs can go into any recline level, even totally flat. This is on account of infinite position lift chairs recliners having dual motors. Some lift chairs can go into the Zero Gravity position, a position created by NASA to reduce join stress. Some can go into the Trendelenburg position.
Two position lift chairs are restricted in attributes and have no real savings. The typical price for a two position lift chair is $769 which is lower than the typical cost for a three position lift chair but the lowest cost 2 position lift seat costs more than the lowest price three position lift chair. We urge you purchase a three position lift seat if you're thinking about purchasing a two position lift chair — there's no point in purchasing a two position lift chair.
An infinite position lift chair has a complete range of motion. Because they have two motors, their ottomans can be moved independently of their backs. Additionally they can lie completely flat to be used as a bed. The average cost for an unlimited position lift chair is $1,300, rather higher than the average price 3-position lift seat but there are units as low as $700.
Are you considering renting a lift chair? The cost difference between renting a lift chair recliner and buying a lift chair is not that much. 3-position lift chairs start out at $500 and, with a $250 medicare reimbursement, it'll cost about $250. This includes free shipping. The lowest cost for a lift chair rental is $85/month plus a delivery fee. Some places charge as much as $110/week for a lift chair rental. Obviously, it is better to buy a low end lift chair instead of paying a monthly rental if you'll need a lift chair for more than 3 months. If you need it for less than 3 months you can also sell the lift seat later too. Below are retailers, some of which you are able to rent a lift chair from if you need a lift seat for several weeks.
Should you buy a new lift chair recliner or a used one? Used lift chair recliners begin at $250. New lift chairs can be purchased on Medicare part B for individuals and $500 can qualify for a $250 rebate, making a brand new lift chair the same cost as an used lift seat. Apart from that, used lift chairs rarely carry a warranty whereas a brand new one does. It's recommended that you buy a new entry level lift seat rather than an used lift seat.
Medicare has a rebate of $250 to $300 for people who are on Medicare part B and match the medical necessity conditions. Those individuals can have the cost of the lifting mechanism in their lift chair compensated by Medicare. Read about getting the Medicare lift chair rebate here.
Below are the warranties for each lift chair manufacturer, in brief. Normally the frame, lifting and reclining mechanism is covered for a lifetime. Upholstery is normally not covered. Everything else gets at least a 1 year warranty. This usually only applies to the first owner and in residential use.
Besides being accessible at an assortment of local stores such as Costco, Walgreens, Art Van Furniture, Franklin, Value City Furniture, Sam's Club, and Lazy Boy, Lift Seats can be bought at the following local retailers. Some also sell other mobility devices such as stair lifts, electric scooters, wheelchairs, medical equipment rental mobility scooters, bed lifts, elevator, and pool lifts. Craigslist is also a good area to find used and new lift seats. So you're certain to find a quality product as nearly all the items sold via these retailers are American furniture.